Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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and limed, are skirted with deep woods, particularly of spruce, which thrives wonderfully, and covered with excellent grass. We drove in the droskie and walked in the evening.
June, 26. — Another day of unmitigated heat; thermometer 82; must be higher in Edinburgh, where I return tonight, when the decline of the sun makes travelling practicable. It will be well for my work to be there — not quite so well for me; there is a difference between the clean, nice arrangement of Blair-Adam and Mrs. Brown’s accommodations, though he who is insured against worse has no right to complain of them. But the studious neatness of poor Charlotte has perhaps made me fastidious. She loved to see things clean, even to Oriental scrupulosity. So oddly do our deep recollections of other kinds correspond with the most petty occurrences of our life.
Lord Chief-Baron told us a story of the ruling passion strong in death. A Master in Chancery was on his deathbed — a very wealthy man. Some occasion of great urgency occurred in which it was necessary to make an affidavit, and the attorney, missing one or two other Masters, whom he inquired after, ventured to ask if Mr. — — — would be able to receive the deposition. The proposal seemed to give him momentary strength; his clerk sent for, and the oath taken in due form, the Master was lifted up in bed, and with difficulty subscribed the paper; as he sank down again, he made a signal to his clerk — ”Wallace.” — ”Sir?” — ”Your ear — lower — lower. Have you got the half-crown?” He was dead before morning.
[Edinburgh,] June 27. — Returned to Edinburgh late last night, and had a most sweltering night of it. This day also cruel hot. However, I made a task or nearly so, and read a good deal about the Egyptian Expedition. Had comfortable accounts of Anne, and through her of Sophia. Dr. Shaw doubts if anything is actually the matter with poor Johnnie’s back. I hope the dear child will escape deformity, and the infirmities attending that helpless state. I have myself been able to fight up very well, notwithstanding my lameness, but it has cost great efforts, and I am besides very strong. Dined with Colin Mackenzie; a fine family all growing up about him, turning men and women, and treading fast on our heels. Some thunder and showers which I fear will be but partial. Hot — hot — hot.
June, 28. — Another hot morning, and something like an idle day, though I have read a good deal. But I have slept also, corrected proofs, and prepared for a great start, by filling myself with facts and ideas.
June 29. — I walked out for an hour last night, and made one or two calls — the evening was delightful —
“Day its sultry fires had wasted,
Calm and cool the moonbeam rose;
Even a captive’s bosom tasted
Half oblivion of his woes.”
I wonder often how Tom Campbell, with so much real genius, has not maintained a greater figure in the public eye than he has done of late. The Magazine seems to have paralysed him. The author, not only of the Pleasures of Hope, but of Hohenlinden, Lochiel, etc., should have been at the very top of the tree. Somehow he wants audacity, fears the public, and, what is worse, fears the shadow of his own reputation. He is a great corrector too, which succeeds as ill in composition as in education. Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity. Yet Tom Campbell ought to have done a great deal more. His youthful promise was great. John Leyden introduced me to him. They afterwards quarrelled. When I repeated Hohenlinden to Leyden, he said, “Dash it, man, tell the fellow that I hate him, but, dash him, he has written the finest verses that have been published these fifty years.” I did mine errand as faithfully as one of Homer’s messengers, and had for answer, “Tell Leyden that I detest him, but I know the value of his critical approbation.” This feud was therefore in the way of being taken up. “When Leyden comes back from India,” said Tom Campbell, “what cannibals he will have eaten and what tigers he will have torn to pieces!”
Gave a poor poetess £1. Gibson writes me that £2300 is offered for the poor house; it is worth £300 more, but I will not oppose my own opinion, or convenience to good and well-meant counsel: so farewell, poor No. 39. What a portion of my life has been spent there! It has sheltered me from the prime of life to its decline; and now I must bid goodbye to it. I have bid goodbye to my poor wife, so long its courteous and kind mistress, — and I need not care about the empty rooms; yet it gives me a turn. I have been so long a citizen of Edinburgh, now an indweller only. Never mind; all in the day’s work.
J. Ballantyne and B. Cadell dined with me, and, as Pepys would say, all was very handsome. Drank amongst us one bottle of champagne, one of claret, a glass or two of port, and each a tumbler of whisky toddy. J.B. had courage to drink his with hot water; mine was iced.
June 30. — Here is another dreadful warm day, fit for nobody but the flies. And then one is confined to town.
Yesterday I agreed to let Cadell have the new work, edition 1500, he paying all charges, and paying also £500 — two hundred and fifty at Lammas, to pay J. Gibson money advanced on the passage of young Walter, my nephew, to India. It is like a thorn in one’s eye this sort of debt, and Gibson is young in business, and somewhat involved in my affairs besides. Our plan is, that this same Miscellany or Chronicle shall be committed quietly to the public, and we hope it will attract attention. If it does not, we must turn public attention to it ourselves. About one half of vol. i. is written, and there is worse abomination, or I mistake the matter.
I was detained in Court till four; dreadfully close, and obliged to drink water for refreshment, which formerly I used to scorn, even on the moors, with a burning August sun, the heat of exercise, and a hundred springs gushing around me.
Corrected proofs, etc., on my return. I think I have conquered the trustees’ objections to carry on the small edition of novels. Got Cadell’s letter about the Chronicle.
July
[Edinburgh,] July 1st. — Another sunny day. This threatens absolutely Syrian drought. As the Selkirk election comes on Monday, I go out to-day to Abbotsford, and carry young Davidoff and his tutor with me, to see our quiet way of managing the choice of a national representative.
I wrote a page or two last night slumbrously.
[Abbotsford,] July 2. — Late at Court. Got to Abbotsford last night with Count Davidoff about eight o’clock. I worked a little this morning, then had a long and warm walk. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton from Chiefswood, the present inhabitants of Lockhart’s cottage, dined with us, which made the society pleasant. He is a fine, soldierly-looking man — though affected with paralysis — his wife a sweet good-humoured little woman. He is supposed to be a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine. Since we were to lose the Lockharts, we could scarce have had more agreeable folks.
At Selkirk, where Borthwickbrae was elected with the usual unanimity of the Forest freeholders. This was a sight to my young Muscovite. We walked in the evening to the lake.
July 5. — Still very hot, but with thunder showers. Wrote till breakfast, then walked and signed the death-warrant of a number of old firs at Abbotstown. I hope their deaths will prove useful. Their lives are certainly not ornamental. Young Mr. Davidoff entered upon the cause of the late discontents in Russia, which he imputes to a deep-seated Jacobin conspiracy to overthrow the state and empire and establish a government by consuls.
[Edinburgh,] July 6. — Returned last night with my frozen Muscovites to the Capital, and suffered as usual from the incursions of the black horse during the night. It was absolute fever. A bunch of letters, but little interesting. Mr. Barry Cornwall writes to condole with me. I think our acquaintance scarce warranted this; but it is well meant and modestly done. I cannot conceive the idea of forcing myself on strangers in distress, and I have half a mind to turn sharp round on some of my consolers. Came home from Court. R.P. Gillies called; he is writing a satire. He has a singular talent of aping the measure and tone of Byron, and this poem goes to